Virtual and augmented reality systems (collectively, “mixed reality” hereafter) have been commonly used to navigate three-dimensional (3D) information and 3D spaces. User interaction with 3D mixed reality has largely been about navigating in 3D space. Recently there has been appreciation for how mixed reality can be useful not just for exposing a three-dimensional space, but also for 3D exploration of data that may not be 3D in nature.
Consider, for example, that it might be desirable to present a set of data items in three dimensions. Presentation of data items in 3D mixed reality has only mimicked the presentation of data items in two dimensions. For instance, two-dimensional (2D) grids are used in 2D user interfaces. Such a grid might be translated to a 3D space in a variety of ways, for instance by texture-mapping the grid onto a surface or object in the 3D space. Or, the grid might be presented as a floating 2D rectangle, etc. Regardless of how a grid or the like is presented in a 3D space, the interactive behavior of the grid in the 3D space is often no different than that of a grid in a 2D user interface. If a grid in a 3D mixed reality includes scrolling behavior, the scrolling behavior may be nearly the same as a grid in a 2D user interface; scrolling a fixed layout of data items in the directions of user inputs.
In addition, the ways sets of data items have been arranged in three dimensions is little different than the ways they have been arranged in two dimensions. Displayed data items might be ordered according to a feature or parameter of the data items. The layout of the data items, even if presented in a 3D space, mirrors that of 2D layouts. Data items have not been arranged and presented in mixed reality systems in ways that are attuned to the features of many such mixed reality systems.